


little grey box

by angelheartbeat



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Internal Monologue, Jake Peralta in Prison, Loss of Identity, Prison, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 20:03:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16793797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheartbeat/pseuds/angelheartbeat
Summary: The thing about prison is that, once you've been there a while, the walls start to close in on you.





	little grey box

**Author's Note:**

> ive never written a b99 fic before but im all up in my feelins abt jake n theres not enough b99 fics in the world so.. Here

The thing about prison is that, once you've been there a while, the walls start to close in on you.

Jake supposes that's the point. Prison's meant to enclose you, after all. Drown out the outside world until all thats left is this little grey box, these little grey bars, the little grey window opening to a vast grey sky. 

Prison's for bad people, so why not close in the walls? You did something wrong. That's why you're here. But Jake knows he did nothing wrong. He did nothing wrong. Did he do something wrong?

Something in his life must have led him here, to where he's lying in the dark wishing he was anywhere else. When everything is dark, and his eyes have adjusted, he can almost see faces in the gloom of his cell. One of them is Amy, uptight and loving and his dream girl. Her face always fades away too fast. He wants to marry her someday, but the weeks between visits make him fear forgetting her face. He always was like a goldfish.

When the faces aren't Amy, they're Holt, or they're Charles, or they're Rosa or Gina or Terry or Scully or Hitchcock. Sometimes they're his mom. Less often they're his dad. When they're none of his friends, none of his family, they're something else. Sometimes he thinks they might be people he's put in prison, and that knots up something in his chest that he never felt before he entered those little grey walls. Sometimes they're altogether inhuman.

No one should have to lie awake, feeling pressure on their chest from when they picture the room closing in on them. No one should have to hyperventilate quietly in the corner of a rock hard bed, trying not to wake up their cellmate, scared and alone. No one should see faces twist and morph between invisible horrors and their closest friends when they look out at the darkness. No one should, so why does Jake?

No, he must have done something. Maybe something in a past life. Maybe all the times he's stepped on a bug, or forgotten to say thank you to a cashier, or let a perp get away - maybe they all built up a karma debt that led to some great cosmic injustice, leaving him in this little grey box where everything is dark and he's homesick.

Hes all smiles during the day. You have to be, in a place like this. He has to be, even just to keep his sanity. If he wasn't, he's sure that he'd be swinging gently from his cell ceiling by now. But during the night, when tears leak quietly from his eyes before he can quell his sadness, he thinks maybe he becomes someone else. He's not Jake Peralta anymore. He's just a man, alone in the dark.

Distantly, he's sometimes glad its not Amy, in this box. She's claustrophobic. It would terrify her. Distantly, he wonders whether Rosa feels the same way he does, or whether her feelings really were fried years ago (he knows they weren't, she must be lonely, she must be, he can't be the only one, he misses her so much). Distantly, he thinks that he's glad its him, and not the rest of the 99. He'd do anything for his family. If it had been someone else, accused of the same crime, he'd confess to doing it himself. (distantly, he knows he wouldn't. this is a hell he couldn't put himself through willingly. this is a hell of bars and walls and faces in the dark.)

For so long, his job was his identity, his stability, part of him. Now thats ripped from him, and all he is in the eyes of the world is just another dirty cop, just another common criminal, just another speck of scum on the cesspool of life. He misses the weight of his badge around his neck, the familiar feel of a gun at his hip, his heart full of honour and his brain full of hunches. 

Now, all he feels the weight of is the burden of enclosure. Its like hes an animal at the zoo, poked at with sticks until the monkey starts to dance.

Jake sighs. Above him, his cellmate shifts in bed, bringing with him an orchestra of jangling springs. God, he wishes that he were just at home, in bed, sat against the headboard while Amy did her crossword next to him. He'd look at her, and smile, and she'd kiss him and tell him how much she loved him, and he'd return in kind. They'd be safe, and warm, and happy. He wouldn't be lying in a freezing room, feeling the walls inch ever closer, listening to someone he barely knows move around in his sleep, feeling like the entire world was bearing down on his chest.

Through their tiny window, a sliver of moonlight shines. That must mean something, right? It must mean that somewhere, out there, something was looking out for him? Maybe that something would be with the nine-nine, easing their thoughts into something that would lead to the epiphany that freed him. Maybe. It had to.

No, that's stupid. Jake turns over so he can't see the moonlight, so he's facing the wall instead.

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to ignore the walls closing in.

**Author's Note:**

> i use a ridiculous amount of anaphora and tricolons in like. every fic ive ever written
> 
> i dont even kno what th Fuck this was but. leave a comment if ur happy and u kno it


End file.
